


Bill and Razor's (not so) Excellent Adventure

by natalunasans



Series: Ownership Enough [30]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst and Humor, Autistic Character, Brain Damage, Canon Disabled Character, Canon LGBTQ Female Character, Canon Queer Character of Color, Caretaking, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Cybermen - Freeform, Cyborgs, Disability, Disabled Character, Disabled Character of Color, Episode: s10e11 World Enough and Time, F/F, Fix-It, Free Will, Friendship, Gen, Hispanic Character, Humanity, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, Implied/Referenced Torture, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, Latino Character, Lesbian Character of Color, Lesbians in Space, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Medical Experimentation, Neurodiversity, No Lesbians Die, Other, POV Character of Color, Physical Disability, Revenge, Robot Feels, Roommates, Sickfic, Spoilers for Episode: s10e11 World Enough and Time, Technobabble, accidental empathy, fatphobia, internalized ableism, overcoming internalized prejudice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-11-22 10:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 17,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11377899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natalunasans/pseuds/natalunasans
Summary: if "World Enough and Time" had featured a different version of Simm!Master, it could have been a lot more fun, and Bill could have had better chances like she deserved.





	1. awake

**Author's Note:**

> a bunch of vignettes, related to what we saw on tv but changing certain elements so that they make sense for my version of S!M (see http://archiveofourown.org/series/275331), who has had very definite experiences of disability that the one in season finale hasn't. i tried to keep Bill fairly close to the person we know from tv, but it's my first time writing her, so please send concrit if anything sounds 'off'.
> 
> they won't be posted in perfectly chronological order, because reasons.
> 
> IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN OR BEEN SPOILERED FOR THE EPISODE, this may not make sense.
> 
> \---------------
> 
> collaboration with @modernwizard  
> (check out her Bill Potts fic here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11413839 )  
> we live-blogged both parts of the 2-part DW S10 finale together. We then spent many hours in chat detailing ways in which we would have improved the story. We ran a lot of our character interpretations, world-building, and plot points past each other. We ended up with settings that, though not forming a single shared world, are still very similar. She didn't write any of the following stuff, but she did help me with planning. She also gave her seal of approval [including laughing at the funny bits] to the excerpts I showed her. THANKS, MW!!!

Bill wakes up… The ceiling doesn’t look right. Even if everything weren’t so fuzzy. And that noise… The hell are her flatmates doing? 

This… is not the shared flat. This isn’t even her room. Has she been roofied? A surge of fear cuts through the fog of her brain -- must get away!

She tries to turns and feels her head and limbs heavy, so far so NOT good. 

Things are attached to her. This is BAD. Her vision clears a little more…  This is… is she in hospital?!

“Awek? Good, gooood.”

Peering round the curtains at the foot of the bed is a creepy, scruffy-looking round-headed white guy with an odd accent and lots of facial hair. 

She’s panicking, trying to remember how to form sounds, maybe a scream to scare him off, but he makes eye-contact and wiggles his fingers at her… 

“Settle. Ressst…”  

In the edge of consciousness, she sees a silhouette of the Doctor:

“Wait for me…”

She’s so tired. Why is everybody telling her to do things? She’s slipping again into sleep, she mustn’t, but there’s nowhere to catch hold. She can’t… she lets herself fall.


	2. stuck

The Master is pleased. It’s been a long wait, even by his standards. But finally someone connected to the Doctor (not _his_ Doctor, but that makes it even better) has made their way down here.

It's the first time he's felt lucky in quite a while.

Nothing here has gone to plan. First time away from the Doctor in his newly-revived TARDIS, and he ends up too close to a black hole (and the event horizon) to escape. This trip was meant to prove to the Doctor that he could survive on his own… He’ll probably still go back to them, because let’s face it, the Doctor needs him. But now, at least on his end of reality, he’s been stuck here for months, though he still hopes to get away from the black hole and back to his Doctor’s TARDIS before they’ve noticed him missing.

Meanwhile, he’s found lots to occupy himself. With his own TARDIS managing pain control, he has about as much mobility, stamina, and concentration as when he stayed with the Doctor.

The problem is the others. And it’s not quite the same kind of people-management challenge that he’s used to.


	3. assessment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (these 2 chapters that are in past tense are flashbacks. not the ptsd kind, but the [i didn't tell you this before, because i wanted to start with Bill waking up] kind)

He put on a perception filter and stepped out into… yet another dystopia. Because no, the universe wouldn’t let him start out somewhere nice! Instead, he’d materialised inside a Mondasian colony ship, where, inevitably, some of their medical personnel were inventing cybermen. No big deal, right? He’d dealt with cybermen loads of times. With or without the Doctor. 

Cybermen may not have changed much, but this time the Master was older and wiser. Or at least more tired. By the time he’d scoped out the joint and decided which of many possible disguises he’d like to keep using, he'd realised that some things needed to change. He could fix this place, make it live up to its potential.

He sometimes explored the city, when he had the energy to walk for more than a quarter hour at a time. At least he could explore at his own pace, not trying to keep up with the Doctor’s long strides and seemingly boundless energy. 

But perhaps he’d been lucky that his TARDIS materialised inside the hospital, as that’s where he needed to spend most of his time. The shimmer let him pass unnoticed as he had a look round the different wards. 


	4. parallels

The half-converted, not-yet-cybermen, their entire bodies covered in loose mesh cybersuits, sat apparently docile and unseeing in their wheelchairs, each with their IV drip of the glowing substance that was preparing their bodies for “upgrade”.

He felt a pang of envy. Soon, these life forms were going to be invincible, and he would never be. Leaning against a wall, gathering his strength again, he didn’t need to watch them long to notice that something was wrong. Something _more_ than whatever they were ill with that made being turned into cyborgs a better option. There was a vibe of forced compliance, something he'd often known the other side of. More recently, though, thanks to the Time War and thanks to the Doctor, he had been the one forced to acquiesce, to let things be done to him. He shuffled over and examined their equipment. They had what appeared to be communication boards where they could press different keys and… nothing happened. He turned a knob that must be a central volume control, and a mechanical voice rose, repeated over and over from the devices of many of the patients:

PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN

Might it be handy to have such a communication board, for the days when he couldn’t manage words? It would be great fun to annoy the Doctor with. If he used the PAIN button realistically, he’d drive them both mad. So, no big change then. But telepathy was still more efficient.

Those that weren’t pressing their PAIN buttons twitched their limbs, with what little mobility they currently had, in agitation. They were signalling something. He turned down the volume again and slid into a darkened corner as a small group of medical personnel swirled into the room. He knew the perception filter and his nondescript grey clothes would make it hard for them to notice him, but still he froze and his heartsbeats quickened.

The medical worker and their cyber crew attended first one patient then another. There was no communication, no questions nor consent. They did things _to_ them, not _for_. The relief was palpable when they left.

The Master hadn't spent much time in hospitals.  Most Gallifreyans hadn’t. Back home, if a person were too badly damaged, they just regenerated. More minor injuries could be healed in a short time by borrowing a tiny bit of regeneration energy off your future, and since most people lived cautious, unadventurous lives, even that was rare. When he was re-loomed to be weaponised by the Council, when they weren’t yet sure they could control him, they had him in a sort of treatment facility… more prison than hospital. That's exactly the gut feeling he got from this place. The Doctor’s zero room and medical bay were… not this bad. He’d still felt like a prisoner at first, and accurately so, as the Doctor had kept him essentially locked up until they’d learned to trust each other. But even in the Doctor’s TARDIS the Master had sometimes got flashbacks of his confinement on Gallifrey.

Here, in this hospital, right now, his pulses hadn't slowed any, and in fact the pressure was starting to build, the noise in his head getting louder. And now, it was synced with the memory of those mechanical voices deadpanning PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN.

The Master ducked back into the shadows and curled up behind some discarded furniture. Even with the perception filter on, it didn’t seem safe to have a panic attack out in the open. He pulled his cap down further over his forehead, gripped his knees to his chest, and waited it out.


	5. tea

When Bill regains consciousness for good and notices what’s happened to her chest, she rips open the press-fasteners of her hospital gown in horror, only to find the wound almost healed around the mechanical heart, which, with all its blinking lights and various ports, _is_ kind of fascinating to look at. “O…kay. I’m not dead. Guess it works.” Later, hopefully, she’ll find out more details.

When she disentangles herself from all the medical equipment but the cyberfluid drip, and wanders out to explore the hospital, Razor is waiting. He introduces himself, shows her around.

She’s horrified by the PAIN PAIN PAIN PAIN patients, but he tells her not to worry. He has a plan.

“Yeah, the Doctor always has a plan, too, or pretends to. Where _is_ the Doctor?! My friend and the… people we came with?”

Razor shows her the CCTV view of the bridge, describes the time dilation. Twice.

“Bloody hell.”

“Yes, good. You here now.”

“Erm… I’m sorry but… _why_ am I here?”

He gestures to her ‘heart’, “You wait, you get strong.”

 

Eventually, he offers her tea.

“Just a cuppa, yeah? Don’t get any ideas. I’m… not into guys.”

“Not worry. I hev partner.”

“Oh, nice! Does he work here, too?”

“We travel separate for a time.”

“Wow, for how long?  You must miss him!”

“Is okay… Big snorer. Very big noise! Ghnaaaaaahh Ghhhnaaaaaah Ghnaaaahhh”

Bill giggles for the first time since she woke up. The second time will be when he tells her about the good tea and the bad tea.


	6. plans

Just his luck: _Bill_ is a loud snorer. The Master leaves her the one visible bed, separated from the main room by a low divider. When he thinks he might actually be able to sleep, he goes into one of the other rooms hidden behind the locked door where he tells her he keeps provisions. A lie of omission.

The two of them have taken to hiding out in his TARDIS (disguised as a tiny flat) when the medical people want them to work and they don’t have the energy that day. Which is a lot of the time. Bill hasn’t yet asked him why the Surgeon’s minions can’t seem to find Razor’s living space even though it’s _literally right there_ , but he’s sure she’s noticed. Not much gets by this one. The Doctor must miss her terribly, and it will be great fun to deprive them of her.

The Master is finally learning to cook, now that his Doctor isn’t here. He’s objectively awful at it, but in a place like this, nobody expects good food. Bill needs to keep her strength up, so he makes sure to include enough protein, even if he often ends up cooking things he can’t digest.

When he and Bill _do_ feel strong enough to work, they make themselves available and get assigned various cleaning and maintenance tasks in the wards with the special patients. Of course, the medical workers can’t be arsed to stay very long with the ‘bag-heads’. Our two renegades usually find a moment of privacy to talk to those in process of cyber-conversion and explain their options and the ways to resist the mind-control aspect, if they elect to do so. He’s working on pain control, and devices to facilitate deprogramming, and he and Bill let the patients know how to communicate their choices to them.


	7. pain

It’s a spectacularly bad pain day for the Master, so Razor has assured Bill that he is “today, very baed company”, and that she should go to work (and cyber-resistance recruiting) on her own this time. She squeezes his hand on the way out the door. It hurts, but he squeezes hers back. His triumphant glance in the direction of the flickering CCTV monitor goes unnoticed behind Bill’s back as she hurries out.

As soon as she’s gone, the Master retreats back behind the locked door and down the long corridor to the Zero Room. Normally he’d just run his hand along the panelling for balance, but today he’s leaning as much of his weight as possible on the wall and each step is taking maddeningly long. That’s when he remembers that he could’ve used the wheelchair he and Bill ‘borrowed’ when she first got out and was very weak. To go back for it seems as impossible as to go forward the rest of the way, and anyway a manual chair is only going to be as hard on his arms as walking is on his legs. He leans back against the wall and slides down until he’s sitting on the floor. He just stays there, eyes closed, waiting to feel less pain, less panic, less anything.

Of course, the opposite happens: the ‘drums’ get louder, everything conspiring, unbearable. No one to see him like this, but also no one to help. 

He’s tempted to start banging the back of his head, something he hasn’t done in ages. It’s not like it could hurt  _ more _ . There’s no Doctor to see the bruises, and the perception filter will hide anything like that from Bill later. He does an experimental tap, then another. By the time he hits his head with as much force as he can muster, the wall gives way! He tumbles backward through what is suddenly a door, into the Zero Room, and lets the telepathic atmosphere lift him. Since this is his own bonded timeship, she can manipulate his body and brains in ways the Doctor’s TARDIS can’t… or won’t.

That’s another thing, he thinks, as the pain, pressure, and noise recede slightly, and he begins to see a way through the fog. The Doctor’s TARDIS rearranges rooms all the time, whether to hinder or help, but his ship hasn’t done that very much lately. In fact, his TARDIS has been awfully quiet since they materialised here. If he didn’t know what it’s like to go into physical and mental shut down, he might think she’d died again. Perhaps she wasn’t ready for the trip, perhaps she’s still tired (isn’t everyone, in this place?!). Perhaps she’s ashamed about getting them stuck next to a black hole, cross with him for pressuring her. But she’s there for him now: a good sign.

He fills the sentient ship in on how his plans for the cyberpeople have evolved, how he hopes to find a way to free their wills and emotions, while letting them keep and control their adaptive implants. He’s sure that if he can pull this off, their gratitude will win him a society of devoted followers. To that end, there is some even more exceptional help he could use at this point; how can he get that to happen? Before his treatment is even half done, he's negotiating their next steps as a team, with all the charm and power of persuasion he can manage. 

As the Master makes his way back to the front room (his steps still slow and halting, but a great deal less painful), he notices that grip-bars have grown out of the walls. Excellent idea! He pats the wall in appreciation. 

On his way out, he grabs a tin of meat-circles and some equally unidentifiable veg from the storage shelves that camouflage the beginning of the corridor. Flatmate will be home for tea; hopefully he can make Bill a nice fry-up… for some value of nice, anyway.


	8. heart

Bill is talking quietly with a patient as she mops the floor around their wheels. The communication board volume is turned up just a little so that they can answer but not easily be overheard. They've got a special tech request for Razor, and Bill is trying hard to commit it to memory, as carrying written records could be dangerous. 

Her memory used to be excellent, but ever since That Thing Happened and she ended up down here, she's had a harder time. Razor says this is normal. Not only brain damage buggers your memory, but also pain and general stress. He jokes (at least she  _ thinks _ he's kidding) that in his case sometimes he can't remember what happened yesterday, but only what happened tomorrow.

The patient actually notices what's wrong before Bill does, possibly due to the engine-management light blinking out through her jumper. They stiffen and search for the appropriate communication buttons but in their hurry find only ALERT ALERT PAIN YOU PAIN YOU

By the time Bill figures out what was meant, she's already collapsed on the floor with her cyber heart sending stabbing pains throughout her upper body and emitting a piercing siren noise. She briefly thinks that if it were smart it would conserve its energy for moving her blood, instead of shouting, and then she passes out.

Bill comes to with someone shaking her, but in urgency, rather than violence. It's that scary fat nurse from the other ward! This is the first time Bill has seen her up close. Her long, shiny black hair is drawn back into a severe bun, but despite her serious look, she’s probably not much older than Bill. Her huge, dark eyes and wide, distinctive features would probably seem friendly, if her face weren't absolutely expressionless. Of course, she also looks tired and unwell like everyone here. When the air is always bad and the food is always bad and  _ everything _ is always bad… Bill suddenly wishes that, at less than 30 years old, she didn't already have so much experience with dystopias. 

The nurse is helping Bill sit up.  _ She’s really strong. She smells sort of nice… jasmine? But seriously, she should lay off the chips. Fuck, I miss chips! I miss proper food. I miss my real life! _

The area around her implant hurts, and her lungs, and, weirdly, her fingers and toes. But wait, why was she unconscious anyway?! 

The nurse (nametagged Marta) explains in a hushed, hurried monotone: “The cyber organs, sometimes malfunction…”

“So that could happen anytime? Does anybody know why?” 

“Oh yes. The why is easy. Someone thought you needed frightening.”

“Wait, wait-- so you're saying… Wait, who?! You?” If she’s telling her, this is a bad sign. Everyone knows that's what the villain does right before they kill you.

“Remotely controlled.” Marta points, with her chin, vaguely in the direction of upstairs. That's where the, literally, higher-ups in the cyberconversion division have their offices. “Keep us dependent.” 

Marta shows her how to do a hard-reset on her own heart, and the correct settings to make sure it restarts soon enough so that she doesn't die.

“Why are you helping me? Isn't it dangerous for you?”  _ Also, did she say ‘us’ just now? _

“I’ve seen you talking to the Special Patients. Asked around. They say you have a plan.” 

Bill sneaks a look up at the nearby patients and some of them, seated behind Marta, give a signal of approval.

“Well, yeah, there’s sort of a plan…”

“I was lied to.” Although her voice has no emphases, it's clear Marta doesn't mean by the Special Patients, but by the nebulous Them upstairs. 

“You see me. People are cruel. All my life. Even after I got a respected job. The surgeon told me, if I agreed, they’d make it so no one could ever hurt me again.”

“Agreed? To what?”

Marta takes off her nurse’s cap, revealing an implant in her forehead. “Emotional inhibitor. Now people are twice as cruel, but I don't care. Or I can’t show it, which is what matters to them. They lied to me.”

“I’ll ask my… friend what we can do. He might have some way to reverse it. I can't promise; the tech stuff is all experimental. But, Marta…” Bill hesitates. She’s just met this woman, but the patients trust her, and they’re in a position to know the worst of everyone. “You're a good person. You don’t deserve what they did to you.”

Marta’s face, of course, shows no emotion. But she’s like the Special Patients, isn’t she? They’re all people, they can all feel. And what’s been done to her is ugly and scary, but  _ she’s  _ not. 

Before either of them has time to say anything, a shift change is ringing and they need to hurry. Marta helps Bill up off the floor and they part wordlessly, but they squeeze hands in solidarity.


	9. control

When Bill tells Razor about the sabotaging of the cyber-implants, and that this is apparently a common thing… well, she’s expecting his approval for finding out some important intel. Instead, he slams down his plate of mostly-untouched dinner in outrage. And not at the food… well, maybe a little. It’s hard to tell.

Bill startles but keeps on eating. Apparently almost dying, _again_ , gives you quite an appetite.

“Remote. Control. Remote. Control. Why don’t I think of this?! Is brilliant. Keep us guessink, yes. Unpredictable. Always nervous for next trouble. Dependent on the Doct-- I mean, the Surgeon.”

“And we might never have known. Like, even without cyber implants and conspiracies. You ever hear, I donno, some footballer died of cardiac arrest at 25 or whatever?”

“Humans! How you manage?! I mean _we_. How we manage? Goink along, life life heppy heppy, your body just… Fuck off and melfunction? No control!”

“S’pose we’re just used to it?”

“This is why they win. They sell it, cyberconversion. They fix, they upgrade. For survivink. This part, not baed.”

Bill nods. Her cybertech isn’t as good as her original heart, but… it works.

“But then, a clever lie. Extra control. Bug for you, feature for them.” He grasps his head and his voice shifts to a low and desperate whisper. “Hurts, hurts, hurts, hurts. The noise. You can’t hear it. You shouldn’t. In my brain.”

She’s confused: “Cyber implant?”

“No no no no no. Not from here. Hahahahahahah. Much more advanced. Even harder to extract. But it hurts. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Never stops.”

Razor closes his eyes, swallows hard, and resumes almost his usual tone: “Pipple need to hev control. All our functions. Conscious control. Control breathink, control heartz, control metabolism, control temperature, digestion, hearink, seeink, brainz, _mind_. Control is most important think.”

 _What is he on about?!_ “Honestly? That sounds _exhausting_.”

“Dun’t like a chellench? Okey. Cyber implents though? We should hev control.”

“Well, yeah, fair enough. And a user guide!”

“Patience, my dear. Already workink on this. Might need some help, for spellink.”


	10. doctors

They sit on the ancient sofa, in companionable silence. Razor is reading one of his pile of books in a variety of strange languages, very few of which, she noticed a while ago, are actually printed in a Cyrillic alphabet. He’s taking a break from working on some of the cyber-implants that he nicked from the lab and has been trying to hack.

Bill is curled in the other corner, her knees up but carefully not touching her chest. Sometimes she can feel the edges of the mechanical heart bonding with her living tissue, which seems like it shouldn’t be possible, but she’s seen lots of technological wonders by now, so she accepts that it’s real and… sort of cool. But it also sort of hurts, like when your leg is waking up from being asleep, but all the time. Except when it’s worse. Razor mixes some kind of contraband painkillers into both their tea, but she can still feel the ominous prickling. The pain, the shape of the device sticking out of her, the way it alters her balance, all remind her that she’s different now, that she’s changed forever. But hey, she’s alive. Try to stay positive…

She’s picked up what seems to be an anatomy book of some other planet where the people are vaguely humanoid but with lots more limbs. Even so, _they_ only have one heart, too. The font is unlike anything she’s seen, let alone can understand, so she’s ‘reading the pictures’ just out of curiosity, when suddenly the words and sentences swim into focus in English. She shakes her head at the illusion, but the text stays legible. She’s about to ask Razor if he can see it too, but he interrupts her thoughts.

“This… Doktor of yours. Is very gud? Deserfs your sekrifice?”

Bill stares at him. “I mean… the Doctor’s amazing… I've learned so much…”

“But deserfink?” He hesitates. “I see you. In telly. I see what you do for _your Doktor_.”

He gestures at his own chest. “I see… hole, big hole. I see you, not believink wot just heppen. One whole week, I see this.” He convincingly mimics the despairing astonishment that must have been her expression before she went unconscious.

Bill’s face falls as she remembers a little of what he’s saying. Or is she just suggestible? No, she’s pretty sure that’s what actually happened. “He… that blue guy… he said the cyber-workers would go away if there were no humans. I was the only one. I didn’t think he’d do… _that_.” She looks away. She’s shaking as if she were cold, but the temperature in the little bed-sit was cozy enough when she got up.

Even though he’s definitely reacting to what she said, his eyes look past her, focussing on someone else in another time and place. He leans forward, his face intense with pain and effort, veins bugging out on his neck and forehead. “Get out of the way,” he says under his breath, in a completely different voice, and he does some gesture with his arms and hands, like he’s element-bending or… something out of some anime.

Then, as if nothing happened, Razor is back. His face softens in a self-deprecating smirk; he scoots over and puts an awkward arm around her shoulder. The sudden code-switching has sort of creeped her out, but she lets him.

“This Doktor, doesn’t deserf you, my dear. I know them… pipple like that. They expect the best, bot they dun’t always give beck. They mek big promises… _I can help you, everythink will be okay_ , all this…” He waves his hands expansively, “And then they ken’t ektually help you, and then you are stock, like this.” Surprisingly, he points to his body, not hers. But he’s always moved with some difficulty, as if holding himself together.

She wonders… he’s never talked about how _he_ got here or what was wrong with him.

“I’m sorry that happened to you, too.” Bill doesn’t know what else to say.

“ _Too_. You admit.”

She doesn’t feel ready to say anything more, but she sits thinking a while, as he goes back to his reading. Every once in a while one or both of them looks up at the screen to see if the Doctor and Co. have moved. She registers a flicker of resentment at how much they’re both focussed on the Doctor, the same Doctor who couldn’t even promise not to get her killed.

Bill keeps drowsing off, her head slumping onto Razor’s shoulder. He adjusts his arm a little to keep her close, comfortable. She’s less than half awake when her head slips a bit further and, with her ear against his chest, she hears something that shouldn’t be. She’s used to her own heartbeat, whether the original or the new mechanical one, marking a regular ta-tum, ta-tum. Razor’s heartbeat is different: ta-ta-ta-tum, ta-ta-ta-tum. She’s heard that before. She heard that the last time she was drawn into a hug with her head on the Doctor’s chest. By the time she wakes up properly, some hours later, it will seem like something she dreamed.


	11. reveal

“Right, so I’ve been thinking.”

“Good thinks or baed thinks?”

“There’s a lot of _things_ that don’t add up.” She counts on her fingers, so as not to miss any:

“You’ve got two hearts like the Doctor. Your flat is bigger on the inside _and_ it has auto-translate. How did you get an apartment _inside_ a hospital anyway?! You know all kinds of weird random stuff. When you’re extra tired you complain about humans like somebody who isn’t one…”

“I am indignated. Your lek of feth… distorbs me.”

“And you can drop the _fek eksent_ and all. I had a Russian friend back home, you don’t sound anything like her family. Where are you _really_ from?”

Razor shrugs enigmatically and wiggles his eyebrows. “Lots of plenets have a Russia.”

“No, but _really_?”

“My dear, do not esk this. If you esk again, I fear I may have to… tell you.”

“Well, guess what, I’m asking. Because look… you talk about the Doctor like you know them… Like really well. According to the Doctor, there’s only one person who knows them like that. Are you… This is weird, but are you the same person as Missy? She scares me. Are you… the Doctor’s oldest friend? Because I don’t think I can trust you any more than I trust the Doctor.” She’s instinctively moving away from him, inching towards the exit door.

“Okey.” Razor leans forward, burying his face in his hands. If she’s wrong… but she can’t be. She’s sure of her facts. He gets up, with some effort.

“Okay, you got me. I’m the Master.” He’s swapped the dodgy foreign accent for that of a Northerner trying, mostly successfully, to sound posh. She has no idea if this is real, if anything is. Maybe it’s all a simulation, maybe the real Bill Potts will log out and this version of her will disintegrate, and she’ll wake up in the real reality, with all her own internal organs intact, and Missy will disengage from the VR machine next to her, with a wink and a cheeky-slash-evil smile.

He raises his hands in surrender, but walks towards her. “Don’t be frightened…” but her eyes go wide and her mouth starts to tremble, and he stops. “I’m going to change my face, okay?” He lowers one hand to the neck of his jumper and fishes out a chain with a key on it, and pulls it over his head…  

Bloody hell. That’s not Missy. She’s looking at… an older, bearded (but not Razor’s scraggly long beard) version of _that guy_ … the one who was PM for like a couple of days, back when she was a kid. She doesn’t remember much about him except he’d supposedly gone mad and assassinated, like, all his cabinet ministers and… the American president?! …before being assassinated himself. She wonders where the Doctor was then. Or were they in on it all?

“D’you see why I hid? I didn’t want you making assumptions.”

“So, all this time…? Everything…? I thought…” She expected to cry, but her emotions have gone all dull. She might as well already be a fucking cyberperson.

“You thought what? That we were _friends_? The Doctor says I’m no good at having friends, I keep getting them killed. Have they met themself?!”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No! I mean, I did consider it, but I’ve had a much better idea.”

 _Excellent, positive attitude. Will help with the horror to come…_ NO. She doesn’t want his words in her head anymore.

“Look, Bill. My dear Bill, can I still call you that? When I said that the Doctor doesn’t deserve you? That wasn’t an act. You’re quite clever, for a human. Terribly principled, but no-one’s perfect. And at least it’s not for show, like the Doctor. They don’t deserve a good friend like you. They deserve someone like me, who can and will hurt them back. Who can remind them of what they are.”

“What else…?” She’s not sure if she’s asking what else was real, what else was a lie, or what else she needs to know about the Doctor. Maybe all of the above.

“All the work we’re doing with the cyberpeople? I intend to destroy the forced conversion industry, and I need some of their technology for my own uses.”

“Are you really…?” She gestures vaguely at his body.

“This is me. The outfit, eh… maybe overdoing it a bit? Hashtag dystopian aesthetic?”

“Oh, come off it!”

“Yes, I’m really… Look, we don’t even have the same concept of… disability, on Gallifrey. Damaged people aren’t supposed to…” He makes his own vague gesture encompassing himself, as if he can't quite bear to say ‘exist’ or ‘survive’ or whatever.

“Fucking hell. Really? Well, that explains a lot.”

“You mean the Doctor?”

“The Doctor, yeah. _And_ Missy and all. Are you really her?”

“Erm… sort of. It’s complicated.”

“And your partner? Is he real?”

“Rude! Of course they’re real. My partner is the Doctor.”

“ _That_ Doctor?!” She points at the CCTV.

“No, no, no. A different life, a different… version. Like me and… your ‘Missy’.”

“Oi, she’s not _mine_. I don’t even like her. The first time we met, she told the Doctor they should let me die.”

“It seems you and I finally agree on something.”

“I think…” Bill hesitates. “Maybe two things. I think we’re both very angry with the Doctor.”

“My dear Bill, I think you’re right.” But Razor, or whatever he really is, suddenly seems to run out of steam. He reaches out for the nearest piece of furniture and leans on it heavily. They’ve both been standing for most of this intense conversation, though Bill has got through it leaning against the wall near the door. Sometimes her implant seems to weigh much more than it possibly could, given the size of it.

He looks like he wants to say something more, but he also looks like he can’t.

“Can we sit back down?”

“Ekcellent… idea.” He starts to slip back into that accent and catches himself mid-phrase. He shuffles his way over to the sofa and drops into one corner with evident relief, leaving plenty of space for her.

Bill joins him, well at the other end. She keeps her feet on the ground instead of curling up in her usual way. “I’m still calling you Razor, though. I don’t like that other name.”

“Not probleym.” This time it’s deliberate, and he winks.

“Oh, stoppit!”

“So,” there's a sharp intake of breath as he shifts his weight, trying to get comfortable, “How shall we teach the Doctor a lesson?”

He grins at her, which is moderately _more_ terrifying in this face with the perfect teeth, but Bill allows herself to smile back.


	12. hivemind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  ~~sorry for the delay, life has been... inconvenient. better chapters coming soon!~~  
>  5 aug 2017: attempted to fix some cybermen terminology i had got mixed up (o_o)

The cyberiad is a perversion of a hivemind, but the operating principle still stands. Finally humans could belong to a convenient cloud-processing and communication network like the Matrix back on Gallifrey. Unfortunately, the Surgeon (acting as cybercontroller) has Rassilon-level aspirations of experimenting on the general population. Fortunately, the Master has experience working around the machinations of the most manipulative leader in the civilised universe. Also fortunately, the Surgeon, being a human, is easier to dispense with.

He predicts the Special Patients will be especially pleased. Cyberconversion has eliminated their individual voices and their communication boards are still cumbersome, even though they’ve cooperated to add phrases for everyday pragmatism rather than drama and horror. In the hivemind, their personalities will ring out again as distinctly as their individual thought patterns.

Because of the cyberplanner that the Surgeon has been using to control them, the cyberpeople risk always associating a hivemind with lack of personal choice or free will. They might not realise the convenience of the resource that's being handed them. All that's needed, he thinks, is to provide them a way to shut off the external control, or even temporarily log out from the hivemind itself, leaving them exactly as connected as they want to be. That, and convincing them that this is in their best interests.

The Master dusts off his old political skills and rehearses possible speeches as a kind of hybrid of Mister Razor and Mister Saxon. Surely he's just got to convince them. Maybe a little hypnosis just in case? No, wait, that would be spectacularly counterproductive. So just charm and persuasion it is, then. He'll record his broadcast on a good day, when he has the energy for charisma.

Then he’ll play it on the cyberplanner channel so everyone receives the message. Before he destroys the planner, there will be instructions for tuning one’s mind to an alternative hivemind channel without hierarchy: for communication, not control. He considers maintaining the cyberplanner and using it for his own purposes, but again, in a hivemind that would be obvious… and it seems to go against the very thing he’s trying to sell. The very concept of cyberplanner must be got rid of.


	13. backup

Meanwhile, the Master’s TARDIS is making her own contingency plans, using the separate hivemind network of the sentient timeships, something akin to a Matrix of their own.

Indebted as she already is to the Doctor's TARDIS for her own rescue, they've got an automatic pact of solidarity as sentient machines. She hopes to be of service in turn, but for now, she's going to ask one last favour. It's not that she doesn't trust the Master to get them away from the black hole on his own (spoiler, she totally doesn’t)... It's just that he might need backup.

And the new human friend qualifies, due to her implant, as a machine person who gets their protection. 

Also, the TARDISes agree, it is a new and a good thing to see the Master looking after someone else in addition to the Doctor. This rare behaviour is called decency, and should be encouraged. 


	14. comics

Sometimes the Master still does Razor’s accent to cheer Bill up. Razor was comic relief ( _and_ exposition!) and you need comic relief even more when you actually know what's going on.

Like one time that Bill feels too much has already changed, like she’ll never have a normal life again. And he _could_ tell her seriously, from one newly disabled person to another, that this might be true, that it happened to him and it’s not the end of the world. But instead he looks at the glow of her heart through her jumper and says:

“Look on bright side: you not cyber-man, only iron-man.”

Bill starts to laugh at the pun and then remembers something from the far-away life, back in her real world, the one with pop culture, and her eyes go wide with the possibilities:

“OH MY GOD. RAZOR. OH MY GOD. I CAN COSPLAY RIRI WILLIAMS! LIKE, AUTHENTICALLY!! I COULD HUG YOU. But don't worry, I won't.”

So she gets to explain to him how, in the comics, the new Iron Man is actually a young Black woman, and she gets to plan a costume for the next London ComicCon after they get out of here…

Hope. Sometimes it finds the strangest footholds.


	15. contagion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for posting out of chronological order again, but... only just remembered i wanted to put a sickfic chapter in here somewhere

With the cramped living conditions and bad air, it was probably inevitable. At some point half the hospital comes down with the flu. Of course Bill had her jabs for uni, but that was for Earth strains of various illnesses, not Mondasian.

The worst hit are the Special Patients… they already had lower mobility and a lot of pain because of complications from the cyberconversion process, and now many of them have high fevers and are racked by violent coughing. Bill is distraught that she can't help them feel any better. Luckily, not only Marta but, after _she_ becomes ill and has to take some time off, even the most inhumane medical workers scramble to add palliative meds to the Special Patients’ IVs… This is mainly because they can't stand the (admittedly terrifying) noise of cyborgs fighting for breath, but at least the patients get some relief from symptoms.

The full cyberpeople no longer use their digestive systems, so that’s one part of the flu they don't have to deal with, but everyone else does. Bill spends much more time than she would like in the TARDIS bathroom. She thinks that she really should have realised this wasn't a normal flat immediately, just because of how nice and modern the toilet and shower are, compared to the rest of the apartment.

Razor is furious. She's seen him angry sometimes: mostly at the medical workers, often at devices he was trying to hack, several times at her Doctor and even at his. And of course they've quarrelled, as any flatmates, over things like organisation of belongings and division of chores. But this is different. He doesn't even shout, which is good because Bill has an awful headache (despite Razor's best contraband painkillers). But his face gets all tense and he grips the table like he’s about to pull it apart.

“Careless. Idiot. How could you let yourself get infected?! Don’t you know I’m trying to keep you safe?!”

“It's not as if I planned--” Sort of hard to have an argument when you can't even say one sentence without coughing. To make things worse, her cyberimplant hurts terribly with every sudden movement.

Razor pushes a cup of tea at her so forcefully that some of it spills out. In between coughing fits, she tries to drink up the rest of it while it's hot, deliberately ignoring the puddle on the table.

After a while of muttering to himself in what must be Gallifreyan, and glaring at her in the universal language of giving people dirty looks, Razor finds a towel and mops up the spilt tea.

“Back to bed. Now.”

Just for this once, Bill is willing to obey, but nausea interferes.

After she's been to the loo, she stumbles back behind the partition and retreats under the covers.

She wishes Razor would quit watching her. Control may be one of the few ways he knows how to express worry, but it's not exactly relaxing. He does make sure she has extra pillows, and she finally settles in the bed, coughing only periodically. He even finds her some only-semi-vile-tasting cough syrup. She manages to sleep a little at a time, but never wakes up rested.

Razor also keeps Bill supplied with tea and mystery broth, though she hasn't much appetite. When she gets up for the loo or to drink hot liquids, she vaguely notices what else he does while she’s out of commission. Mostly he’s working on the various devices for the cyber-resistance. He definitely doesn’t go out to the wards, but often cyberpeople (some of them still wheezing, too) visit to deliver or pick up tech, and possibly contraband. She isn’t sure how they can find the TARDIS while the medical people can’t, but figures it’s thanks to some Time Lord magic.

Bill’s fever breaks after a few days but the flu lasts longer than the expected week. In the second week, she’s bored and restless, tired of doing nothing except reading and sleeping, but lacking the energy to do anything else. She still has a lingering chesty cough and a lot of pain around her mechanical heart. Razor scans her every day with some Time Lord gadget, to make sure she’s actually getting better, however gradually, and that nothing is going wrong with the implant. He suddenly has plenty of painkillers; she doesn’t even have to ration them.

And then Razor himself falls sick, _because of course he does_ . Who knew that Gallifreyans could catch human respiratory infections?! Of course _he_ must have known, so why didn't he tell her?! Why wasn't he more careful while looking after her?! She ends up grousing at him just as he did at her (although with slightly less intensity). It would be funny, if they weren't both so miserably ill.

Bill tries to convince him to leave the lumpy old sofa and sleep in his own bed, wherever that might be located inside the TARDIS proper, but Razor refuses. He says he needs to be near the exit door and his worktable and the monitors, in case anything happens. She wonders if that’s the only reason, but doesn’t ask. It’s true he’s very shaky, and can barely move around the flat without leaning on the walls and furniture.

Razor with a fever is… strangely calm, though. He _says_ that a high enough temperature can stop the noise in his head, but Bill isn’t sure if he means it literally. He definitely looks like he’s high _on something_ , but she felt pretty weird when she had a temperature, too.

After his fever breaks, Bill finds Razor curled up under a duvet, gripping the back of his head so hard his knuckles are white. He makes no sound except quick shallow breathing, and he’s shaking uncontrollably, but not like with chills. She makes him a cuppa, because she doesn’t know what else to do. With some coaxing, he manages to sit up and drink a little. His skin is greyish and he stays hunched over with pain.

Every time Razor coughs, his whole body crunches up like a startled spider. When he can talk again, he explains to her that Gallifreyans don’t have lungs, but rather breathing passages spread throughout the torso and limbs. She thinks that’s an horrible arrangement, but doesn’t say so. He probably thinks it’s horrible, too, just now.

While they’re both ill, he still insists on scanning her lungs and heart regularly, but it doesn’t take too much effort for Bill to convince him to look after himself as well, including taking the cough remedy and painkillers. She tells him to rest and let her see to tea and broth for a change. The TARDIS larder reveals a seemingly endless supply of tinned provisions that are equal parts frightening and (hopefully) nourishing.

It’s frustrating being already sort of not okay, and then getting sick on top of that. Sometimes they snap at each other over nothing, before remembering how exhausted they both are. Sometimes cyberpeople show up needing something that Razor has been too weak or dizzy to prepare, and leave disappointed. Sometimes Bill drags herself out of bed only to regret it halfway to the kitchen. And sometimes they both stay lying down, grumbling across the room at each other about how rubbish they feel.

One day, after both of them are finally on the mend, Bill and Razor are sitting curled up in their respective corners of the sofa reading, just like old times, before she knew who he really was. (Sometimes she wonders if _anyone_  knows who he is, _but whatever._ )

He puts on that other accent ( _so he can say something ‘The Master’ wouldn’t?_ )

“You are verry kind to me. You are my dearest human. You are like--”

“Like… what?” _Oh come on, spit it out, admit you_ are _capable of having friends after all._

But Razor starts coughing again and never does get around to finishing that sentence.


	16. almost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again sorry for the delay. life is going back to 'normal' but i'm having difficulty figuring out how to write Twelve and Missy, so those end chapters may take a while.

Time passes. Life and work continue. One evening Bill and the Master come back from their shifts (that is to say, surreptitious meetings with the cyberpeople) and the CCTV shows no Doctor, no Missy, not even Nardole. They must have all gone into the lift!

“Okay, this is it…” It’s almost become more Bill’s mission than the Master’s: Operation Teach the Doctor a Lesson. There’s no big plan. Bill will just refuse to be rescued, explaining that she feels safer with a (former? current? _does it matter?_ ) intergalactic villain who at least understands her situation, than she does with the (supposed) hero who got her into it.

The timing could have been better, but it could have been worse. It will take some hours for the lift to pass through the slow-time of the upper floors. Tomorrow, confrontation. Tonight, sleep, or at least rest.

Bill curls herself around her heart (she said it was starting to feel like hers) and somehow manages to sing herself to sleep with barely audible comfort songs. Whatever works.

The Master doesn’t retreat into the other rooms of his TARDIS (he wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway), but stays on the sofa. He’s not sure if he’s guarding Bill, monitoring the CCTV (now patched to a different camera, to show the inside of the lift), or trying to psych himself up.

The Doctor and Missy are visibly bickering, especially as the video starts to show movement closer to real time. Nardole is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s cleverer than he looks, and has hidden in the Doctor's TARDIS. One less person, so much the better.

The Master eventually curls up on the sofa, pulling his knees up to his chest, but still doesn’t sleep. He rubs absentmindedly at his shins and ankles, fidgets with his key, picks up books and puts them back down without reading. He murmurs his own comfort phrases, rehearsing what he might say to his other self and her Doctor. Maybe, after a while, he dozes a little. 

* * *

In the morning, they both dress carefully.

Bill opts for the most serious outfit she can put together (there’s no shortage of black clothing), but pulls back her hair with a yellow-and-red-flowered scarf, as if to say, with the lively colours: _I am still here. See me_.

The Master has somehow found a sharp-looking coat that is soft enough to not give him sensory problems. They’re not meeting _his_ Doctor, who at least has learned about pain and overload, but Bill’s Doctor, who… well, it’s hard to know what they’ll understand. He feels the need to make an impression.


	17. masters

The Master buttonholes his future self as soon as she gets out of the lift.

“Other me! We need to talk. C'mere, have a seat.” He contrives to conserve all his energy for the discussion.  
“Since you sent those distress calls from inside the vault, I’ve been looking into everything else you’ve been up to. Wasn't sure you were really us.”

“Excuses, excuses. You’re just late to your own rescue.”

“By the way, _Missy_? Are we really going by that now?”

“What’s wrong with a little change?” She sells it well. Sometimes her natural charm even covers the sadness in her eyes.

“Oh, change can be great… This new look, for example… very nice. But we had a perfectly good name. Lovely and universal.” He sneaks a glance at Bill… “Nearly universal.”

“Riiiight. So what’s your _real_ quarrel with me?”

“Well, you look like a woman. And the Doctor still looks like a bloke.” Ugh, he worries he’s starting to think like a human.

“I thought that was okay in most places. We’ve mostly been on _Earth_ for a while,” she names the planet with the same sneer as he does, “have I got my galaxies mixed?”

“No, yeah, that’s… not the issue. It’s some of the _other_ combinations that some people on Earth still have a problem with.”

“Oh… because I’ve been talking to the Doctor about trying out an _upgrade_ next time, as well. In case I _accidentally_ get them killed anytime soon, you know.” Does she look _hopeful_? She might be alright after all.  

“Right, but, right now, on Earth, you look like a woman. And you’re letting the Doctor keep you locked up in a box. And you’re kneeling and begging them to be your friend. It’s… unseemly.”

“But I _want_ them to be our friend. Don’t you?”

“Eugghhhhh. Not today! In general, maybe.  
But seriously, only doing empathy when we look like a girl? It makes no sense. We’re either supposed to have no empathy at all ever, like a proper psychopath, or have it capriciously like the chaotic villain we are. It shouldn't be a gendered thing. But when we look different and then suddenly act differently as well, that's reinforcing the worst kind of Terran ideas.  
Look, I swotted up on all that. You must remember? When we were prime minister?”

“You falsified our school records, though.”

“No, I mean I studied human prejudices, so I could properly humiliate the Doctor’s friends and hurt the Doctor. And it worked a treat! Racism, sexism, homophobia, classism… just some of the ways humans have found to be monsters to each other. They’ve got at least three we didn’t even think of back home. I missed out understanding ableism at the time, but the Gallifreyan version was similar and I’ve since done… remedial work on that one. How do you remember I faked our marks and not remember all this?!”

“I’ve been busy?” She rolls her eyes.

“Busy changing our name, our modus operandi, our… values.” The more emotional he gets, the further the Master’s accent slides North.

“Since when do _we_ have _values_?!”

“You know. The amoral compass. The Doctor and us. We find each other and balance each other out. We’re their reality check, not their hench… _person_. And we’re sure as fook not their Mistress.”

Now it’s her that’s getting emotional: “If _your_ Doctor told you they wanted to take care of you, and they really really meant it, even though they might keep you locked up for a wee while… Don’t you _dare_ tell me you wouldn’t take them up on it. Because I may not remember everything but _I remember when you did that_.”

“For one thing, I was dying. _We_ were dying.”

“Took you long enough.”

“The Doctor… It’s all terribly embarrassing, but they saved me. Well, we saved each other, but then… they gave me a whole regeneration.”

“ _We_ saved each other from electrocution. Not simultaneously, of course.”

He lifts an eyebrow: “I’ve… exchanged a bit of electricity with my Doctor, and all.”


	18. person

While the two Masters’ argument devolves into nostalgia and one-upmanship, Bill is left with the Doctor.

“I trusted you, back then. But I couldn’t wait for you.”

“Of course you waited. You’re still here.” The Doctor splays out their hands at her, as if Bill’s presence proves them right.

“We’ve been getting lots done all this time. Finding out how cybertech works here, trying to make sure they have choices…” Bill’s eyes light up and her eyebrows dance, just thinking of all they’ve managed. “You know, Razor wanted me to dress up as a full cyberperson just to give you a fright. We realised it would be disrespectful to the Special Patients, though.”

“Disrespectful?! They’re not _there_ anymore. That’s sort of the point of Cybermen.” The Doctor shapes their long fingers into an imitation of the cyberman headgear.

“Says the person who was giving me orders while I was dead.”

“But it worked -- you heard me! Bill, you’re awfully new at this. You need to listen to the people with experience.”

“All that experience and you still got me killed. Also, how could you not know that the full cyberpeople are still ‘in there’?! They still feel everything. Razor has been working with them on more ways to communicate, so we know loads of details now. I thought you cared about all life-forms. The cyberpeople, they’re still people and they still matter. Sometimes I think I believed in it all too much, yeah? All the things you told me about the universe. I believed it more than you did.”

“This… Razor? He’s not what you think he is.” Their eyebrows low and worried, the Doctor doesn’t realise that they’ve skipped over most of the important bits.

“You’re not who I thought you were either.”

The Doctor brushes her away with a gesture. “Shut up. I’m here now, and it’s time to vamoose.”

“Doctor, I can’t…” Bill's voice falters.

 _Is she softening to them already?_ The Master feels the need to interrupt: “You didn’t look after your pet… so she’s mine now.”

His impertinence works. Bill is back in fighting mode: “I’m not anyone’s pet. I’m a person.”

“See, this is why you'll never have real friends. You don't think anybody else matters.”

Good thing the Master doesn’t care what _this_ version of the Doctor thinks… Otherwise that might have hurt. “Whatever. At least I kept her safe _for over a year_ once she showed up down here.”

“Doctor, when you have a clever plan, nothing and no-one else matters to you. I know I didn't.”

“Bill, you know that's not true!” Great, they're this close to shouting at her…

She touches the area of her implant almost involuntarily, and who could forget the image of her standing there by the lift with a hole blasted through her?

“Okey, Bill the Person, what you want to do?” The Master uses Razor's voice, (not) just for old time's sake.

“I want to go home. I want-- no offense, but… I want to eat proper food again. I want to see films and take walks and go shopping and date girls… I want to not have to worry about the ethics of dating the only girl in town who knows how to reset my artificial heart. I want to go back to uni. But… Maybe not Saint Luke’s, and maybe not even Bristol. And one day, I want you and _your_ Doctor to come visit and take me travelling. You did say yours had… improved?”

“Yeah… mostly.”

“I’ll take it.”

The Doctor starts to protest. You just know by the way they’re gearing up for it, this is going to be one of those sanctimonious speeches about their feelings around some big abstract ideal… and no-one can bear hearing one of those right now.

“Doctor,” It's Bill that steps up. “You've taught me such a lot. Some of it on purpose, some not so much. One big thing I’ve learned is not to trust authority figures, no matter how much they catch my imagination. Getting away is… what I need to do. Goodbye, Doctor.”

“Bill, wait! You can’t just run off!”

But she's already gone, back into Razor’s flat, or the Master’s TARDIS. She’ll probably need to have a cry or something ( _eugh_ ), but at least she managed to face the Doctor and say her piece.

The Master feels… what is this weird sensation? Sort of like winning, but more like feeling good about _somebody else winning_. What is that even called? He files the thought away for now.

* * *

What looks like just the door to the flat slams and locks itself a little too loudly after Bill goes through it. On the psychic wavelength, the Master can feel the echo of his TARDIS wrapping around Bill like a force field. _Protect the bio-mechanical friend._ So that’s alright then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah it wasn't 10yrs in my version. i just feel like time got over-exaggerated in tv canon lately (not just in this episode but all over the place).


	19. intervention

The Master, though, isn’t done.  He’s managed to pop up next to the Doctor in such a way that he can casually lean against a wall whilst talking to them, a little trick to postpone just a bit longer the worst of the pain and the ensuing energy crash.

“So, I had a little infodumping session with… myself there.” He gestures at Missy, who has wandered off to inspect some machines across the corridor. “And she showed me something. When you were supposed to be dying? and you answered a plea from Davros, who was also supposed to be dying?”

The Doctor shrugs: “Something like that…”

“You went on and on about compassion--”

Their eyes go big and serious: “It’s important, not that you’d understand!”

“And yet at some point you dragged a legless man out of his wheelchair-slash-lifesupport, and paraded around in it yourself. Who _does_ that?! I mean I suppose _I_ might have… before. But now even I know there are some lines you just don’t cross.”

“What kind of lines? What are you talking about? It was just a bit of theatre, to impress the Daleks…” The Doctor spins on one foot, their coat billowing out around them.

“Treating your enemy like they’re not a real person, because there’s something wrong with them. It’s just not on. They’ve done it to _us_ all our lives; you must have noticed. Because you’re peculiar, because I’m mental… But you can’t talk about compassion and do the same thing as the rest! It’s hypocritical.”

“How are _you_ lecturing _me_ on hypocrisy?!” The Doctor gestures with those dramatic hands.

“Look, I’ve _always_ admitted what I am. Enjoyed it, even. You’re the one who pretends we’ve nothing in common. Either embrace your capacity for evil or suppress it better, but don’t pretend you’re The Doctor, Never Cruel or Cowardly… when you _are_ cruel, and I’ve lost track of how often you let your companions sacrifice themselves for you. Just admit it, you’re as bad as us.” He waves expansively to include Missy.

The Doctor retorts: “You think life is some kind of competition. But I’m not trying to win. I’m not trying to beat you, although I usually manage to, because for all your genius sometimes you act like a pudding-brain. I’m just trying to do what’s right, what’s decent; I’m just trying to be kind. All you ever do is make things worse, all you want to do is hurt people for fun.”

The Master couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried:

At that moment a group of cyberpeople come down the corridor, some free-walkers pushing some Special Patients’ chairs. They peer cautiously out their eye-circles or through the fabric covering where their faces used to be, looking around to make sure no medical workers are near, and clearly suspicious of these strangely-dressed new arrivals. Razor gives them an encouraging look.

“Soon?” says the shortest of the walking ones.

“Very soon. Be ready, yes?” says Razor.

All the cyberpeople who can do so make an odd little salute, and Razor salutes them back.

“Sometime this week the cyberplanner goes kablooey,” the Master tells the Doctor after the cyberpeople have continued on their way. “They’ll all have the option of still using the cyberiad to communicate, but no-one will be able to control them by it anymore.”

“Except you?”

“Nope. Not even me. They’ll have complete free will. They have some, now, but they won’t have to fight the cybercontroller when he and his cyberplanner are offline for good.”

The Master hopes the Doctor won’t ask him to explain why he felt the need to improve the situation of the cyberpeople. It was an impulse, he was bored, it was a technical challenge, he wanted to nick some cybertech, it was a clever plan to get their allegiance... All of these are true, but all fall short; he dare not yet articulate even to himself just why or how.

The Doctor calls over to Missy: “We’d better stay around and see what happens. You… wouldn’t happen to remember just what your other self is plotting?”

She reads the situation quickly, or else it’s an actual memory: “I remember… we told you the truth and you didn’t believe us.”

The Doctor looks at her sadly. “We’ll wait and see. We need to look out for Bill… and be here when she changes her mind.”

The Master would like to have the last word: “And one more thing, Other Me! I know we’ve both done some experimenting, but, back me up on this? _One doesn’t kill the companion_. That’s boring and a waste. They’re so much more fun alive, at least provided you choose well… and it hurts the Doctor even more when they lose their friends by the humans’ own decision.”

“Ooh yes. Hearts and minds!” she delivers it with a manic grin worthy of Harry Saxon. _Politics, a gift that keeps on giving._

The Master moves quickly, to get back inside his TARDIS before he runs out of energy, and also before the Doctor can answer. _Good luck, Nardole_ , he thinks.


	20. crash

By the time Razor re-enters the flat, Bill is done crying and has washed her face. She’s sure her swollen and reddened nose and eyes will give away her emotions about having tried to stand up to the Doctor, but she doesn’t care.

The door that opened to Razor’s handprint slams and self-locks protectively behind him as it did for her.

He sort of lurches into the small living area, leaning on the furniture with one hand and doing that holding-himself-together thing with the other arm.

Bill sits up on the bed and they look at each other. Like really look. Razor’s face is paler than usual, almost grey, and the areas around his eyes look bruised.

Bill knows even _she_ must look pale… That happens now, with too much stress, when she feels like this. Maybe the lack of natural light in this place, maybe the bad air. Maybe the mechanical heart. She tries to sit up tall and proud, but the implant feels like it weighs a tonne, and she’s just so tired.

“You okay?”

He hesitates. “Not really. You?”

“Me neither.”

“Good company, then,” with Razor’s old accent, to make Bill laugh.

She manages a smile.

He limps over to where the electric kettle is, though he has to sit down while it boils, and makes tea.

They sit and drink it in silence, but the silence isn’t bad (the tea, of course, _is_ ).

Razor keeps falling asleep on Bill’s shoulder, this time.

She leaves him curled up on the sofa with a loaned duvet, and crawls back under the remaining blankets in her bed. They both sleep for a _really_ long time. Well, they both _rest_.

Bill sleeps the most, because she can. She gets up once in awhile for the loo or occasionally to find random snacks, but then goes back to bed. Sometimes she’s awakened by nightmares of time travel gone wrong, that blue guy with his blaster, even sometimes confusingly realistic dreams in which Razor hands her over to be cyberconverted.

She’s pretty sure that would never happen. It’s not that she has illusions of his _goodness_ , but rather it’s clear that he sincerely would much rather kill the Surgeon and the others for what they’ve done to the cyberpeople, than provide them with one more victim. He does seem to actually like her, but… she tries not to put _too_ much stock in that. Didn’t turn out so great with the Doctor, did it?!

Razor doesn’t seem to sleep much, or well. Most of the times Bill wakes up she hears his restless movements as he tries to get comfortable. Only much later, to her relief, does she notice him deep asleep.


	21. ready

Bill isn’t even sure what day it is when she hears Razor moving about in the kitchen. She grumbles and rubs her eyes.

“You feel strongk today, my dear?”

A lot less things (physically, anyway) hurt than they did the day of the confrontation. “Sort of. Better.”

“Today, we destroy the cyberplanner!” He’s back to his real(?) voice.

Of course they've already discussed that Bill isn't going along to ambush the Surgeon. It would be stupid for her to have stayed safe all this time and then be hurt, or worse, in the last moment.

Bill’s going to oversee things from inside the flat, using the monitors that are now patched into CCTV of various parts of the hospital.

If anything happens to Razor, the TARDIS has done the calculations and is certain of its ability to take her home. Bill just has to throw a certain lever.

She feels bad that he and Marta and others are out there and she’s hiding away, but… She’ll be helping in a way and it kind of feels nice to have someone wanting to protect her. Even if he _is_ just trying to prove something to the Doctor.

Speaking of which… “Where d’you think they’ve gone? The Doctor and Missy?”

“No idea. Lost ‘em on the CCTV. Let’s just hope they don’t get in the way.”

 _And what would you do if they did?_ But she opts not to ask.

They both put on headsets that let them talk to each other on one channel. On another, they can access the cyberiad voluntarily and temporarily, unlike the full-cyberpeople who are online by force and can only do their best to resist the commands. But after today, that won’t be necessary.

Razor’s headset has an additional back piece, a cybertech device he’s been experimenting with lately; he said it was to help with that noise in his head. Something about creating a distraction by competing stimuli. If he’s using it on the important mission, that must mean he feels like it actually works.

What can she say? To wish him _good luck_ seems an understatement, _break a leg_ seems a bit weird, in a situation with some physical danger, and more espionage than theatre.

“Hey. Erm… Razor?”

“Yeah?”

“I donno. Just, erm… come back, okay?”

“Ekcellent plen!” He grins at her with Razor’s teeth and… that other guy’s eyes.

Bill wonders if she’s worrying about the right things.


	22. operation

The Master feels… pretty good. He couldn't plan which day he'd be able to do all this, just as he can never plan _anything_ for specific days, not knowing what his pain and energy levels will be like until that moment. That’s really been the biggest adjustment in his new reality: the inability to plan exactly. He supposes it’s made him more spontaneous, but stops short of admitting _like the Doctor_. And why would anyone be that way willingly?!

Right now joint pain and headache are normal but muscle pain is low, thanks to one of the pain-control devices he’s adapted from cyberparts and that they’ve been testing and distributing to any interested cyberpeople as fast as he and his TARDIS’ 3D printer can produce them. And the other attachment is distracting his mind from the drums… sort of. He hasn't yet figured out how to make any cybertech pain suppressors work for Bill; so far the devices seem more effective on generalised pain than specific areas.

As Razor, he passes almost invisibly through the hospital; even if he didn't wear a shimmer, the non-cybered medical workers are used to ignoring the cleaning and maintenance staff as just more grey elements of the grey background. The cyberpatients, of course, tend to notice everything and everyone. The less they can move and communicate, the more they _need_ to be alert to potential threats.

He meets a group of free-walking cyber-workers, confers briefly with them. The leader of them passes him a large syringe wrapped in a washcloth; he pockets it.

The unexpectedly hardest part of organizing a resistance among the cyberpeople has been the allies’ lack of faces. If they were all Gallifreyans, everyone could ‘smell’ each other's biodata from several metres away and recognition would be easy.

Mondasian humans have _some_ psychic ‘aura’ to them, but as a not particularly telepathic species they read as disturbingly bland and similar. He had to learn that they are, in fact, individuals, just as earth-humans apparently are, but it's been something of a conceptual shock. And he still can't tell the patients apart without observing very carefully their individual body language, dulled as it is by the cyber-conversion process. Cybering eventually makes them stronger, but in the meantime it slows them down and converts many personal quirks to uniform movements.

Oh well, he imagines the patients had to adapt to each other the same way. Bill had to learn the skill of individuating the fully cybered patients by their ways of moving, too, and she's a human.

Speaking of Bill… He’s getting near the Surgeon’s office, so better check if he will be able to work undisturbed there.

“Hello, ground control?” he says softly into the headset.

The sound of her smothering a giggle is oddly comforting.

“I can see the corridor you’re in. All clear both ways.”

Of course Razor, as an electronics maintenance worker, has a master-key. Irony aside, it's very handy for getting into the Surgeon's office without having to take the time to pick locks.

Once there, he wiggles his fingers at the CCTV camera, since with the perception filter only Bill should notice him.

Just in case he _is_ seen, the Master makes a show of double checking all electrical appliances, including the broadcasting apparatus that the cyberplanner plugs into, and the Surgeon’s computer. He copies all the Surgeon's files onto a zip drive while he's at it… might come in handy later.

When Bill finally alerts him that the Surgeon is on his way in, the Master is waiting almost comfortably by the door. He’s opted not to do the spin-round-in-the-office-chair Villain Reveal for pragmatic reasons: popping out from behind the door, he can stick the Surgeon with the syringe before he knows what's hit him. The Master doesn't currently have the strength or quick reflexes of an able-bodied Gallifreyan, but with adrenaline and surprise on his side, he can still overpower a human, at least in the short term.

The look on the Surgeon's face at finding himself on the receiving end of compulsory treatment is really rather delicious. It only takes a moment for the tranquilizer to work and the Surgeon is collapsed in an untidy heap on the floor. The Master has to drag him behind the desk so that the white-coated body won't arouse suspicion on the CCTV, and after doing that and locking the door, he has to rest for a bit.

Bill's little cheer when the surgeon went down was quite gratifying. But then the Master imagines throngs of cyberpeople applauding him when this is all over, and… something about it doesn't sit right. Maybe it's the sheer quantity of them? After basically living rather isolated with his Doctor, and now over a year spending time either with Bill or with the cyberpeople on a small-group basis, he’s not used to dealing with masses of people anymore. The feeling he gets from the crowd, even in his imagination, is it the weight of their expectations? He wonders if he's ‘remembering in the wrong direction’ again, and if this is a bad sign.

Oh well, nothing for it at this point but to go ahead with the plan. There are various ways this could end, but what he’s doing now needs to happen regardless. He sorts through the Surgeon's pockets for the cyberplanner and once he's found it, plugs it into the broadcast device. After a brief coded message revealing his location to resistance leaders and requesting reinforcements to deal with the Surgeon, he plays his pre-recorded message about the hivemind and how to use what will remain of the cyberiad network for communication amongst themselves. Then he unplugs the cyberplanner, fries its inner workings with his laser screwdriver, and pockets the remains.

At this time, various teams of cyberpeople should be dealing with the upper hierarchy of medical staff much as he just has with the Surgeon. They’ll be locked up and… given a taste of their own medicine. If Bill weren’t busy watching the plan unfold in the other locations on the monitors, periodically keeping him posted on it all, Razor would have to tell her this pun.

The sense of impending doom the Master is feeling might just be anxiety, but it seems like everything’s gone almost _too well_ , up to this point.

He tunes in to the cyberiad in one ear, to see how the cyberpeople are liking their communication hivemind...


	23. diplomacy

There's a knock at the door. Bill looks out the spyhole and sees no-one. Then she looks down and sees a cyberpatient, currently mobile enough to propel their own wheelchair. She lets them in so she can still keep an eye on the CCTV monitors.

The cyberperson starts typing on their communication board:

“I HAVE A MESSAGE FROM THE RESISTANCE.”

Bill thinks she recognises their typing style and body language… “Sorry, but are you, um…” She searches for a name but comes up blank, “the same person that tried to warn me when my heart was about to conk out on me? Wait, it’s Neri, innit?”

Neri gives a quick thumbs up.

“Thank you so much for that! If you hadn’t been there, it would’ve been so much scarier. I might even be dead. Oh my god, did we ever get you that tech you needed?!”

Neri pulls tight the cloth over her arm to show her a muscle-stimulation device underneath, and gives another thumbs up.

 _Good old Razor, much more organised than he seems!_ (Oh Bill, you have No Idea)

Then Neri begins to enter commands into her keyboard, until it plays a pre-written message. With the upgrades to their communication boards, the cyberpatients can do this anytime what they have to say is going to be complicated. Stephen-Hawking-lecture sort of technique.

“WE, THE CYBERPEOPLE, HAVE CONFERRED. WE RESPECTFULLY DECLINE MISTER RAZOR AS LEADER. WE WANT _CYBERHUMANS_ AS LEADERS. MISTER RAZOR HAS HAD NO CYBER IMPLANTS. HE IS LIKE US BUT UNLIKE US.”

Okay, so first off, Bill doesn’t feel the disappointment on Razor’s behalf that she probably ought to, but rather a huge sense of relief. Only question is, how is _he_ going to react?

Also, if she was supposed to _get_ the subtext that perhaps the cyberpeople suspect Razor isn't human, she’s got it. If she was supposed to _answer_ the implied query, there's no way she’s giving him away like that.

“And you’re wanting me to pass on the message?”

Neri types:

“WITH OUR GRATITUDE FOR SERVICES RENDERED.”

_Quite the diplomat. Okay then…_

“About that… erm, I have an idea.”

Bill describes what she's thinking of.

“…But, what it would look like, you know, what it would say, that’s all up to you lot, yeah?” and Neri types:

“THE PROPOSAL HAS MERIT. WE WILL CONFER.”


	24. error

The Master carefully shields everything he doesn’t want accessed by the hivemind: mainly pain and his inner thoughts. He tunes in the cyberiad and receives a cacophony of… precisely those elements from the brains of thousands of other people.

And then it dawns on him. The cyberhumans, used to only receiving and at first obeying broadcasts from the cyberplanner, have had no training in psychic shielding, because they’re not natural telepaths! The cleverer and more headstrong might have figured out how to resist commands, but they won't have had practice in preventing their own mental content from being broadcast.

How could he have overlooked this?! The hivemind is never going to work, not like this. They’re going to hate it _and they’re going to blame Razor_. What does he have time to do?! He could reprogram the broadcast device to only receive and pass on signals from the language centres of the mondasian human brain… but to do that he’s going to need help from the very people who are probably most angry with him right now. And he’s also, as the day progresses, in a lot of pain and running out of energy.

The Master, proud and full of carefully-simulated self-confidence, would never admit his mistake. He would especially never ask all the cyberpeople to log-out of broadcasting for a day or so until he can reprogram the cyberiad, and meanwhile request some volunteers who will let him ‘listen’ to their brains to get the language-centre frequencies right.

And yet… a few moments later, the entire network hears the unmistakable voice of Mister Razor making exactly these announcements, followed by responses of all sorts (angry, neutral, suspicious, generous…) The overall consensus is slightly leaning towards the positive, by the time the network goes quieter as many of the cyberpeople obey his request and log-out.

Somehow this self-deprecating other persona has helped the Master circumnavigate the barriers created by (what he thinks of as) his original personality.

As he fills his pockets with the devices he will need to work on the reprogramming, he files away this topic for future consideration. There will be plenty of time for self-reflection once he’s back to his routine of relative inactivity in the Doctor’s TARDIS. He is almost ready to confess that he misses that life… he’s _already_ been admitting to himself, for at least several weeks, that he misses the Doctor.

But what if the cyberpeople want Mister Razor as their leader? Less likely, but still possible, even after the error with the hivemind. The Master’s pride would compel him to accept. It’s true that this was part of his original plan, but the tireder he gets and the more he thinks about it, the more he dreads being the leader of anything at all. What was a fun game when he was young, now seems just a way to run oneself into the ground. And survival comes first.

* * *

The cyberpeople who arrive as backup are the most adapted the Master has seen here yet. They seem to have ‘grown into’ the artificial parts of their bodies and are approaching the strength and invincibility that has traditionally been the goal of cyberconversion. One of them flings the Surgeon over one shoulder, as the rest look round for something to do.

They offer to carry Mister Razor as well (how ill must he look?!), but he declines.

As the Master found out on the way up, the entire upper section of the hospital containing the Surgeon's offices and those of the other high-level medical workers has no lifts, only stairs. It's a clear demarcation: there are places the wheelchair-using patients are physically prevented from accessing, and makes reaching those places more difficult for anyone like him… and of course all those cyberpatients who can walk, but haven't entirely adjusted to their new form.

On the way back down to the lower level of the hospital, he tunes into Bill’s channel and fills her in on what’s happened with the hivemind: just the events, not his fears and doubts. She’s oddly quiet in her replies and doesn’t respond well to questioning, but hearing a voice at the other end of the trajectory helps him manage, however slowly, to walk the rest of the way home.


	25. afterwards

Bill is reading in bed, hair already tied up in a silky scarf, trying to quiet her mind enough to sleep.

When Razor finally limps through the door, he wiggles his fingers at her in greeting but doesn't even manage the usual grin. He disentangles himself from the headset and deposits various gadgets on a worktable, pulls his cap back on, and curls up on the sofa. He must have run out of words on the way back.

It's not hard to guess the answer to ‘are you okay,’ so Bill doesn't bother asking.

“D’you need the zero room?” She knows about that part of the TARDIS by now. She’s even been in there, but the ship was unsure how to work with a non-telepathic human patient.

Razor only shakes his head, eyes already shut, and pulls his knees closer to his chest.

“OK, well, you rest, yeah?”

Bill supposes they both should, so she gets back under the covers and turns out the light.

She still can't sleep. It's not just the restless noises from the sofa, though that doesn't help. Everything she's got used to here is coming to an end and no matter how well it all resolves itself, she’s still about to go back to her old reality… but full of new uncertainties. Even with UNIT medical contacts, life with a cyber implant is going to be slightly complicated. Even if Razor and his Doctor are able to make good on the seemingly impossible promise of a decent flat and a livable income in London, it's not all going to be easy… Bill tries to remember how lucky she's been, but all she feels is overwhelmed. At some point fatigue takes over, and at last she's drawn deep into uneasy dreams.

* * *

By now the two of them are used to often being awake by turns; tiptoeing through the flat, taking note of each other’s sleep before going back to rest.

At some point, maybe a day later, maybe more, they both surface around the same time. Bill has brewed tea (unfortunately, it still tastes no better than when Razor makes it) and laid out some edibles that noone has to cook. Sort of scary alien version of sardines on toast, but at least they’re no worse than the food that does need cooking.

Razor shuffles over to the small table and sits. He’s holding his head, but makes an effort to bare some teeth at her, and she returns a crumply sad smile that’s closer to tears. It’s been a strange few days.

You’d never have this, though, with the Doctor. The freedom to just collapse when you needed to? Resting until you could manage life again? They’d never understand. Maybe not Razor’s Doctor, either. Nor her flatmates back in Bristol. And it’s not like _she_ understood these things before this year… so that’s yet another altered reality.

* * *

Later, Razor is working on reprogramming the cyberiad. Bill observes, off and on. She’s had to learn the basics of cybertech for her own implant and to help with the devices for the resistance, but this one is beyond her skill level, even pushing the limit of Razor’s. She's noticed he prefers to concentrate on fixing things to distract himself, especially from headaches.

Bill wishes her own creative pursuits worked that way, but electronics is currently more a chore than a hobby, she can’t really write when she’s in a lot of pain, and she hasn’t drawn in years. Maybe she should try again someday soon.

She remembers this one uni lecture though, not even one of the Doctor’s, where the prof talked about how reading was also creative, because each reader put their own background and experiences into how they understood the text. Maybe that’s why you get so lost in a story, because you’re actually throwing yourself in there? And at least she’s had access to plenty of books here, although Razor’s fiction library is oddly selective.

When he takes a break from his troubleshooting, Bill decides to bring up the topic of the diplomatic visitor. But how?

“Hey, so, question. What would you do if the cyberpeople decided they wanted to run things themselves without any help from… sort of… outsiders?”

“I’d say they’re welcome to their rubbish city full of smog and inelegant tech.” True, he sounds annoyed, but that’s because of the frustrating device, right?

“So… you're not counting on being asked to run the place after all this is over?”

“I can think of several _million_ things I'd rather do.”

(Bill doesn't ask him how many of those involve getting an entire night’s sleep in one go. She wouldn't like to answer that one herself.)

“OK, so, I have some really great news for you, then…”


	26. justice

The Master has finally managed to adapt the cyberiad network so that non-telepaths can use it for communication without too much trouble. Now, sending and receiving signals are separated, and both are optional. In order to broadcast, a cyberperson must be connected to both send and receive functions, and must think their message just as if they were speaking it (or signing, or writing, etc.) In this way, only deliberate communications will be broadcast. He’s left the rest of the programming, and the devices for it, in the hands of what they’re now calling the IT division (basically, all the hackers they could find among the resistance).

The cyberpeople are of course still cautious of their hivemind, but the Master reckons that its relative convenience will win them over at some point.

* * *

 

The next time they have a visitor at the TARDIS, it’s those invincible cyberpeople that came to take away the Surgeon the other day. The one who offered to carry Mister Razor speaks first:

“PLEASE FOLLOW US. WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO WITNESS SOMETHING.”

The Master and Bill confer, and she agrees to come along.

The powerwalking cyberpeople lead the way in a sort of quick march. Bill keeps looking back at him, slowing her steps, and then asking their guides to slow down as well.

After a labyrinth of hospital corridors, they find themselves in the ward formerly reserved for the ‘non-compliant’ patients (that is to say, those who didn’t _choose_ to be cyberconverted due to multiple organ failure, but who were cybered by force, usually for the Surgeon’s experiments).

The former occupants have been released from the forced control aspect of the cyberiad with everyone else, and also from their restraints. If they left the ward for a time after being freed, they’ve returned for this meeting.

Depending on their condition and how long they were locked up here, they’re either sitting around in wheelchairs or practicing walking after being shackled in their beds for however long. They’re deep in discussion already with a group of Special Patients and other more mobile cyberpeople.

The vacated beds aren’t empty. An impressive array of non-cybered medical workers have been put in the patients’ places. All are currently being kept unconscious, presumably via IV narcotics, but have been shackled in preparation for when they awake. In a place of honour (that is, in the bed with the best security), lies the Surgeon. At issue is the fate of these people who have practiced medicine without the patients’ consent and even tortured some of them. The patients move about double checking faces and ID badges, confirming that those who mistreated them are all accounted for, and that no innocent medical worker has been scooped up accidentally. Notes of their offenses are made at the ends of their beds.

All the important resistance members they know are there to witness or participate in the debate: to Bill’s evident relief, Marta is among them, and they also see Neri. The conversation takes place outloud by communication boards and speech, not yet over the hivemind. They probably have their reasons for not broadcasting this discussion yet.

It seems understood that the fully-cybered people, especially the former ‘non-compliant’ patients, are meant to have the most say in the matter. Marta and Bill and a few others with cyber-implants are listening but not participating. There’s some confusion and frustration as those typing take longer to answer and those who can speak sometimes forget to wait, but reminders are made (albeit sometimes by a typer whacking a talker on the arm with their communication board), and the discussion continues.

“WE SHOULD DO TO THEM… AS THEY DID TO US”

“CAUSE THEM PAIN… LEAVE THEM HELP…LESS”

“CYBERCONVERT THEM BY FORCE”

“SOME OF US CHOSE THIS… IT IS PREFERABLE TO DYING”

“SO WE SHOULD EXECUTE THEM”

“WE SHOULD DO WORSE”

“WHAT COULD BE WORSE”

“I CAN THINK OF… A FEW THINGS… WOULD YOU LIKE… A LIST”

“YES”

The list, not in fact rhetorical, is impressive in its creativity, even by the Master’s standards.

Some advocate for more traditional punishments, such as prison and forced labour. There are objections.

“WE CAN IMPRI…SON THEM FOR TWENT…Y OR FIF…TY YEARS, BUT WHEN THEY GET OUT THEY WILL STILL BE HUMAN”

“WE… ARE STILL HU…MAN”

“THEY WILL BE… THE SAME AS THEY WERE”

“THEY WILL BE OLD AND FRAIL… WE WILL NOT”

“SOME OF US… WILL BE… DEAD” (Full cyberconversion doesn’t always ‘take’.)

“THE POINT OF PUN…ISHMENT OR RE…HABILITA…TION IS THAT THEY SHOULD NOT… BE AS THEY WERE”

“WOULD THEY HAVE EXPER…IMENTED ON US… IF THEY WERE CA…PABLE OF CHANGE”

“WILL WE ASSUME THEM TO BE SUB…HUMAN AS THEY ASSUMED US”

The Master is listening to the discussion with great interest.  Bill is also observing, but is standing near the door with Marta. She hurries back over to him and whispers: “The Doctor! And Missy. They’re in the corridor!”

The Master swears under his breath.

“The Doctor's got that _look_ again.” Bill’s lowered eyebrows broadcast her worry.

Nobody knows _that look_ better than the Master. It’s _stand aside_ , it’s _I'm right and right makes might_ , it’s moral indignation, it’s an impulsivity not unlike his own… but always, in the Doctor’s eyes anyway, justifiable by a cause.

Marta comes over and asks Razor, “Is there any way you could distract your… erm… visitors? This debate really needs to be left to the people most concerned.”

“Not baed idea.” The Master and Bill go out in the corridor and Marta locks the door behind them.

They studiously pretend not to notice the Doctor and Missy hiding behind a group of fake trees. As they walk past (at a leisurely pace and _definitely_ never looking to see if they're being followed), Bill starts talking to the Master just loudly enough to be easily overheard. Especially by sensitive Gallifreyan hearing.

“But what about the noncybered people? What will they do? They can't survive very well down here.”

The Master thinks, _yeah, definitely picked a clever one_ , but he just replies, accurately: “They're free now, too. No Surgeon holding the threat of forced conversion over their heads. S’pose they could go up-ship to the solar farms… if they’re brave enough to find their way.”

“Is it hard to get there, though?”

“No, but… well, you remember. This isn’t your first dystopia.”

Bill stifles a laugh (she caught his dig at the Doctor for almost never taking her anywhere nice), but only says, “Yeah, sometimes when people have been told for a long time they don't have choices, sometimes they need help remembering how to be free.”

“Ekcellent! So, you see, they might need someone to go with them… to _help_ them.”

“Hey, d’you think it’s just the noncybered people, or do you think some cyberpeople will go up-ship, too? Maybe if, like, they want to stay with family or friends that are noncybered?”

“Don't see why not. Now they’re not controlled by the cyberplanner, they’re not dangerous… I mean, no more so than any other human!”

“Oi! But yeah, fair enough.”

As the Master and Bill head towards the lift to the lower level and the TARDIS, they see the Doctor and Missy slipping into the stairwell that leads down to the street:

“Fancy a field trip up to the Solar Farms? Maybe we can help out.”  
“Oooh, goodie, is this another test?!”


	27. goodbyes

Marta’s face still shows no typical expressions, but at the sight of Bill she makes a high pitched squee and flaps her hands. Bill thinks about how her own face often shows _more_ emotion than she wants it to, and how they could be opposite sides of the same coin.

There’s a scar on Marta’s forehead where the emotion-inhibitor used to be attached. She opted to have it completely out, since it didn’t do anything she wanted, and between Razor’s and her own expertise, they managed it.

Now the cyberpeople will need all the leaders they can get from among their own. And while Marta has had her implant taken out, she still has cyborg experience, and most importantly she has the distinction of being the only medical worker the Special Patients trust completely.

Marta’s come to say goodbye to Bill, but Razor wanders over and the three of them end up talking politics.

Bill asks, “Hey, what _did_ everyone decide to do with the other medical workers and the Surgeon?”

“Prison. And they’ll surrender all of their assets.”

“Not tortyures? Eksecutions? Cyberconversions by force?” Razor has his priorities.

So does Marta: “We don’t want to start out our new society with the same errors as the old one. We will try to be innovative with our mistakes.” The cynical humour is clear despite her deadpan face and voice.

“You want quick memory dump of aaall their medical knowledgement? I can do this.”

But Bill remembers: “No upload - no download, without express consent. That’s gonna be one of the new laws, right Marta?”

She nods.

“Settle for chunk of _my_ bioengineerink brainstuffs? No strinks.”

“No malware either?”

Razor pulls his best shocked face. “Rude! But… Not wronk to worry, Ms. García. No malwares in download. I swear on…” he looks round, at a loss for any target worthy of his respect, “I swear… on Bill Potts.”

 _Awkward!_ The object of his oath interrupts, mainly as a distraction: “Erm, could we leave them your 3D printer as well? You could get another, yeah?”

Razor makes a long-suffering expression and shrugs, inclined to indulge her.

“I even throw in copy of Surgeon’s recorts. Save your IT pipple some time overcomink his security, can work on cyberiad instead. Better you than me! Cyberiad is pain in arse… and brainz… and everythink between.”

As he wanders off again to collect all the “goodbyink presents” for the resistance, finally Bill and Marta get some privacy.

“Bill, you’re really leaving us? You’re going home?” Her tone doesn’t modulate in expected ways, because it never did, but her words make clear her mixed emotions.

“Yeah. I wish…”

“You sure you won’t stay? People trust you, you could be a leader.”

“Marta, I know _you’ll_ be great at this, but… I don’t _want_ to lead a new society. I wish I could come visit but… I just really need to go back to Earth.”

Marta takes a while checking and re-checking that Bill will be able to do most of the maintenance on her artificial heart herself. They both know Bill is nearly an expert by now, but it’s such a very practical way of caring about her, Bill can’t help but be touched.

They kiss, with closed lips because the other way is sensory torture for Marta, and then embrace.

As they hug, Marta begins a keening wail, and Bill suddenly realises that leaving is going to be even harder than she thought. Marta is ‘a big deal in the resistance’, and as a medical professional is one of the few able to maintain most of Razor’s work. And Bill has her own world to return to… But it’s been really really lovely. Meeting aliens is all well and good but getting to know each other’s different ways of being human is also important. _Marta_ is important. Bill holds her tight, and mentally joins in the melancholy sound that transcends neurotype.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> when Marta first appeared in a previous chapter, i was thinking more and more about her 'flat affect'.  
> as an autistic myself and having some degree of... irregularity with facial expressions, i thought it would be hilarious (a joke on readers' expectations, not on Marta) to make her autistic, so that when she gets back her ability to express emotions, they're STILL not the expressions that neurotypical people are expecting!  
> but hey Marta's happy, and she and Bill learned to understand each other, so it's all good. 
> 
> PS: she's mostly not coded as the same brainstyle of autistic as me (i wanted to show a professional person having some really obviously autistic mannerisms, because if you're gonna have a new society and try to do things right, then why tf not?!), so if any of my fellow autistics see anything 'off', please send concrit.


	28. vworp

The Doctor paces around the TARDIS console room. Their striped suit is dishevelled, tie undone, shirt untucked. They’ve run all over the ship and found only piles of their own souvenirs, _so much rubbish_ …

Of course they also found the TARDIS cats, who told them something useful. _Always believe a cat the first time, even if what they tell you sounds impossible_ , the Doctor reminds themself.

The Doctor’s dark-brown hair is sticking up in all directions. They grasp at it as if they could pull more ideas out of their brain that way, but only worsen their headache. The background noise of the Master’s moods is gone from the psychic wavelength, and their mind echoes with that pounding emptiness.

Without his dreamleading, they haven’t slept in… who knows how long.

(The TARDIS knows how long.)

* * *

When the Doctor followed the cats down that particular long-unused corridor, it was like a trapdoor opened inside them. They could feel themself falling falling falling, but there they were walking along as if nothing had happened. And of course it wasn’t real, for them, until they got to where the Master’s TARDIS was… or rather, wasn’t.

 _No no no no noooooooooo_ The Doctor beat their arms and forehead against the wall where the other ship, chameleoned as a grandfather clock, had been parked.

(It didn’t hurt the TARDIS, but she could feel the Doctor’s hurt. _He doesn’t deserve your grief_ , she wanted to tell them. _He was always going to leave._ But she waited.)

Nonsensically, they called out for him, not just his chosen name but his old name, the one from childhood. Shouted until they couldn’t anymore.

The cats kept their distance from the mad person, until the Doctor collapsed on the floor, where years of dust clearly outlined that rectangle where the ‘clock’ had stood.

As the Doctor’s skinny frame shook with voiceless sobs, the TARDIS cats approached again. Some insinuated themselves into the Doctor’s lap and others leapt up onto their shoulders. After some time, once breathing and hearts attuned to the purring, the Doctor was able to begin to consider what to do next.

* * *

The Doctor slumps over the console. They’ve sent out signals all over, tracking requests and distress calls… The Master has vanished. _He’s gone. He’s dead. I couldn’t save him; we couldn’t save each other. I’ll never see him again, never ruffle his hair, never touch his mind…_

A lever throws itself. Calculations, long-prepared, are applied. The TARDIS lurches, throwing the Doctor to the control-room floor. The materialisation sound, that usually means new beginnings and new adventures, does not give the Doctor hope.

But then the Doctor scrambles to their feet because their mind hears the sharp edges of a familiar wit, underlaid always by the static of pain.

Across the room stands the Master, _their_ Master. He’s dressed oddly, and it hurts their hearts to see how unwell he looks, but he’s alive! Next to him stands a young human woman with a quizzical face and an impressive afro. She’s probably some sort of cyborg as she’s got blinking lights showing through her top, right about where her one heart should be. She looks exhausted, too, but unafraid.

The Master grins and starts talking very fast: “oh hello, Doctor, see what happened was, I popped out for a pint and got stuck in a time dilation, by the way how long has it been on your side? because it’s been over a year here, but I meant to be back by teatime and I think there may have been some errors of calculation, anyway this is Bill, she's awfully clever, we've freed the cyberpeople but don’t worry, they’re not weaponised, and I sort of lost a coup, but that’s okay because great Rassilon’s balls I am so fooking tired. Give us a kiss?”

The Doctor just stares.


	29. recognition

“Before we go, I want you two to see something.” Bill leads Razor and his Doctor outside and around a corner to a public square. In the middle of what will presumably be a grassy area once they figure out how to make anything grow down here, there stands a modest but unmissable statue. 

The base says simply, FIRST SOLIDARITY ENGINEER OF MONDASIAN CYBER METROPOLIS. No name, date, or further inscription.

The sculpture above it is an absolutely uncanny likeness of Mister Razor.

“Who's this then?” says the Doctor, almost  _ too _ obviously confused. 

Razor’s face (his real one, though) actually shows a fair amount of panic. 

Bill takes pity on him… sort of: “Someone we knew here. A  _ friend _ . It's a bit sad because… we're not sure if he survived.”

The Doctor makes a show of putting on a pair of specs, and takes a good long look at the statue, especially the head and the eyes. Then they look fixedly at their partner. “I always try to hope for the best…”

Razor gestures dramatically at his Doctor and says to Bill, “may I present, my incorrigible optimist! They're even worse than you!” but there's something more than just snark glinting in his eyes.


	30. epilogue

Bill opens a window in her very first flat, a tiny but comfortable bedsit. Leaning out, she can see a street with trees, market stalls, people in brightly-coloured clothing going about their daily lives.

One day she might ask the Doctor and Razor how they got her this place. Right now, she’s just trying to settle in.

Later this week she’s got an appointment with UNIT officers Mister Smith and Doctor Jones, which all sounds a bit Men In Black, but apparently that’s their real names! She's been drilled on just how much of her story it's appropriate for their organisation to know.

From one of the boxes piled in the middle of the room, Bill takes a framed photo, which she hangs on the wall.

She sits on the bed, briefly looks down at the LEDs shining reassuringly through her t-shirt. She looks up again.

“Hello, Mum. I have got _so_  much to tell you!”


	31. (illustrations)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/natalialove/36035817813/in/dateposted-public/)

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/natalialove/36035820883/in/dateposted-public/)

**Author's Note:**

> whew. this is the longest single fic i've ever written. it even sort of has a plot. (o_o)
> 
> SUPER MEGA THANKS to ModernWizard & Kat & RoseElizabethWelles for beta-ing, to Routcliffe & OrphielBurrito & The_Secret_Life_of_Tea & everyone who commented, for continued encouragement (and you should totally go read these people's fics)!
> 
> <3 <3
> 
> ... now, to write the story that happened before this one...  
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/11796642


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